College Football Playoff National Championship Tickets

The College Football Playoff National Championship

For years, many vocal fans had been clamoring for a single national championship game that would determine, as close to definitively as possible, the best team in college football. In 2014, they got their wish, with the introduction of the College Football Playoff title game, the final of the CFP bracket.

Until then, national championships had been decided on paper, either via survey, mathematical formula, historical research or, in one instance, presidential fiat. (In 1969, Richard Nixon announced that the winner of the season-ending game between Texas and Arkansas would be decreed national champion.) The uncertainty surrounding which team won any given season's championship was part of the fun of college football, at least for some fans, but by 1998 they were overruled, with the sport installing a selection system called the Bowl Championship Series.

The BCS formula combined traditional polls with computer rankings to determine the top two teams in the country, who then would play each other for the national championship. The system proved to be hugely controversial in large part because it simply ported over the biases and blind spots of the old system. Deserving teams — Ohio State in 1998, Miami and Washington in 2000, Michigan in 2006 — were frozen out of the title game.

A four-team, two-round, single-elimination playoff bracket was installed in 2014. Teams are selected by a 13-member committee. Ohio State won the inaugural playoff, beating Alabama in the semifinal and Oregon in the championship game. Alabama appeared in the next four finals, winning twice (over Clemson and Georgia) and losing twice (both times to Clemson).

The game floats from venue to venue. The first title games were played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona; Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; and Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Bidders are required to meet the 65,000-seat stadium minimum.